The present invention relates to flavored chewing gums that have improved flavor retention using flavor encapsulation, as well as methods of encapsulating flavor, the resulting encapsulated flavor and methods of making such chewing gum.
Conventional mint flavored chewing gums are made with spearmint and peppermint flavor oils, which are also called essential oils and have a very high boiling point. These mint flavors are generally retained in the chewing gum for the entire shelf life of the product. Other essential oils are fruit flavored oils such as orange oil or lemon oil, or spice oils such as clove oil and wintergreen oil (methyl salicylate). These fruit or spice flavor oils have a relatively high boiling point, thus these also are retained in the chewing gum during its normal shelf life. However, many other fruit flavors are from flavor esters, and some of these esters have very high vapor pressures, and thus very low boiling points. Consequently, the low boiling flavor esters have a tendency to evaporate from the chewing gum and thus are not retained over the normal shelf life of the product. This causes a loss of taste if only the esters are used. Also, for mixed fruit flavors, which use a combination of fruit esters and orange and lemon and spice oils, the mixed fruit flavor changes during the shelf life of the chewing gum product.
Due to the characteristics of chewing gum, much higher levels of flavor are used in chewing gum than in other types of confections. As a result, the flavor changes are more dramatic in gum products than in other types of confections, especially when some of the flavor is lost due to volatility.
Various prior art suggested methods to improve retention of volatile flavors involve encapsulation, either by spray drying with a variety of components, such as gum arabic or maltodextrins, or absorption onto various carriers, or by extrusion into a maltodextrin/polymer matrix. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,187,351 discloses encapsulating flavor in a carbohydrate-based glassy matrix prepared by the use of aqueous plasticizers and melt extrusion. U.S. Pat. No. 4,610,890 discloses a solid flavor composition made by melt blending sugar, starch hydroylsate and an emulsifier. Other patents which disclose methods of encapsulating or otherwise treating flavors include U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,235,274; 5,478,569; 5,897,897; 5,603,971; 5,506,353; 5,786,017; 5,087,461 and 4,532,145.
Some of these methods have not always been completely successful in retaining volatile flavors in chewing gum. While some other of the methods have been successful, they are also fairly complicated and/or expensive. Hence, there is a long felt need for a simple, fairly inexpensive method of treating volatile flavors, especially fruit esters, so that they are not lost from chewing gum as the gum undergoes its normal shelf life storage.